There is a vacuüm on the pagan web. There are many sites dedicated to reviewing books on the Wiccan Web; sadly, I've only seen two sites so far (the Holy Church of Kern and Shadow Witch). The problems? The Holy Church of Kern seems to be defunct, and Shadow's entourage is fluffier than a cottonball on a trampoline. So I've decided to step in and aid to serve that function.
So here are the criteria upon which a site is rated, on a 1-10 scale (graphed in five stars).
Regarding page design:
- Layout: The page setup. Bonus points head to sites with quick load times, good use of coding, and a sleek design. Points will be detracted from sites with bulky code, long download times, cheesy sound bytes or lame Flash intros, or anything else which interferes with one's ability to figure out the site.
- Navigability: How smoothly one can move through the website. A site map and/or a navigation bar is almost required to score more than a 6 on this. Tunnel-like navigation will seriously mark a site down in most cases. If I can't find my way around the site easily, I'll be pretty pissed off.
- Colour Scheme: This one's pretty easy to explain. If the colours are easy to read and don't hurt the eyes, the site will score well. If it looks annoying, the site's gonna take a hit. Images factor into this as well; loudly coloured images (especially in the background) will severely mark down this facet of one's score.
- Semantics: Spelling and syntax. Good English (or whatever language the site happens to be in) will ensure a top score in this department. Poor semantics will not.
Regarding the site's content:
- Originality: Whether or not the site has original content, or spins it in an original way. Plagiarism falls under this category: plagiarised and improperly cited material will severely knock a site's score down. Original or properly cited material will increase this score considerably. Also, if the site has an air of uniqueness to it, this will also help maintain the originality factor.
- Delivery: This has to do with the delivery of the content. Either for serious professionalism or comedic value, the way in which the information is presented can make just as much, if not more, of an impact than the weight of the actual content itself. Concise, straightforward language is the key here; rambling will not achieve a high score. Other factors such as vocabulary, humour and hostility will come into play. The Mirror probably wouldn't score a ten here simply because of my hostility towards stupid people and, in most cases, fluffies.
- Knowledgeability: Whether or not somebody knows their shit and has done their homework (and cited it properly).
- Style: A rather subjective category, but one that matters. If somebody's got style, we give them credit for it. If they simply don't have the game, we aren't gonna give them too high of a score here. Simple as that.
Regarding the reviewer's opinion:
- Fluff Factor: If a site's fluffy, it's gonna take the hit right here. Nuff said.
- Cool factor: If a site's cool, we give it extra props here. If a site just sucks ass, here's where it's gonna lose points.
The scores are totalled up, tallying 100 points. A direct percentage, rounded to the nearest 10% (ie, an 83% rating would round down to 80% becoming four stars; an 86% score, rounding up to 90%, would become 4½). And that's how my site reviews are computed. Reviews may be contributed by Mirror staff members (ie, those who've published essays on the Mirror and/or administrate the message board) only; if you want to get in on the action, you gotta do the work. ;) The only other stipulation is that you cannot review your own site (however, you can petition that others review it...message boards are good for that). For instance, Daven cannot review his Journal, and I cannot review the Mirror; however, we can review each other's sites. ^_^
If it gets 44% or lower (two and a half stars or less), then the website in question will receive my not-so-coveted Stupid Site Award.
Now that we've taken care of explaining what exactly who's grading what and how we're going about it, here are the sites we've rated, ordered primarily by score, then alphabetically:
If you would like your site to be reviewed, then post a link to your site here; in a matter of time your site should be reviewed by one or more of the Mirror's staff.
If you got here through a link, click here.
